7 Ways to Maximize Your Experiences to Fuel Your Creativity
As a Hatch gal, you love to travel to fuel your creativity and bring fresh inspiration. But if you’ve ever returned home with souvenirs that never leave the cabinet, photos that never make it off your phone, and piles of laundry that cry out from the corner of your closet for weeks, then you may need some intentionality in your travel routine.
Whether it’s a day trip or a trip of a lifetime, I love traveling to see the world from new perspectives. As an interior designer, I’m constantly collecting design details, learning about local artists, immersing myself in the food culture, and observing how people interact with their routines. I’ve found that bringing intention to the way I travel has allowed me to maximize the experience —and let the positive creative fuel linger longer. Here are some of the tools I use before a trip, during, and after.
Before Vacation
1. Tidy up your home. While packing your bags, make the time to do all of your household chores before you leave, even the ones you think can wait. Imagine your future self returning from vacation, sinking into freshly-washed sheets, and cooking in a sparkling kitchen. Taking the time before you leave will eliminate potential future stress and you’ll create a welcoming space to come home to.
2. Make a self-care plan. Stock up on your favorite face masks and ensure you have your favorite coffee in the pantry to treat yourself to self-care when you return home. Stock the fridge with basic items that won’t expire when you return or have shelf-stable pantry items on hand. There’s nothing worse than coming home and realizing you don’t have your morning caffeine or something for breakfast. Ease back into your routine by treating yourself to your favorite ways to relax rather than jumping right into the stress of feeling one step behind.
During Vacation
3. Collect souvenirs you’ll use. Consider things that can be used often in your daily home routine, things that you will want to display with your current home design, or something you can eat or drink. Bring an intentional thoughtfulness to anything you purchase on vacation and imagine yourself using it. Are you the type of person who uses cloth napkins more than once a year, or are you promising yourself you will be if you buy them? Do you need another bud vase if you already have a collection of empty ones already (guilty!)? Don’t buy for the person you want to be, but rather for the person you are. As someone who loves a local food item as a souvenir, this is also a reminder that saving that small batch balsamic vinegar from Modena isn’t doing any good if it stays in your cabinet. If you bring it home, make a plan to use it and don’t wait for a “special occasion.” Any day can be a special occasion to savor your memories.
4. Take photos of the context. I love using photography to capture the details of a vacation, but also remember to pause and take in the experience through your own eyes. When you take photos, include snapshots of the people you’re traveling with (and yourself!), the architecture and landscapes, the small details you notice, and the larger context happening around the iconic areas. Photography is its own creative pursuit, so don’t mindlessly snap, consider your subject, and frame your images as you go. Taking in the surrounding context—from locals going about their day to hand-written signage at a farmer’s market, the blooms on a tree, and wide-angle views of pedestrian streets—will allow you to be transported back to those moments when you look at them again. If you use your smartphone instead of a digital or film camera, proactively organize them into folders to make creating an album later easier (and more likely actually to happen!).
After Vacation
5. Build in a Transition Day. Buffer your vacation from your routine by taking an extra day between. Brew the coffee you have waiting for you, linger with a face mask in the morning, and use this time to unpack, do laundry, grocery shop, and prepare for your everyday routine to kick in the following day. This practice allows you to savor the memories of vacation and gives you space to prepare for the “reality” to come mentally. Taking a break between those activities makes me more likely to hang on to the positive effects of a vacation longer.
6. Create a Photo Album. Photos saved on your phone can be great reminders of a trip if you go looking for them, but often they stay buried there, never to be seen again unless you plan to do something with them. If you captured all the context of your memorable experiences and were proactive with saving them to folders, then making a physical photo album will be a breeze. Use your transition day, or hold yourself accountable to make it happen soon after, and use your favorite online design and printing service to print a photo album. You can display it in your home and flip through the album when you need a moment to be grateful for those memories.
7. Plan Your Next Vacation. The Institute for Applied Positive Research shows that planning and imagining a future vacation can boost happiness and well-being. Contact me if you want any ideas or help planning where to go next!
Haley is an interior designer and design director based in Austin, TX. She loves finding inspiration by traveling to new places—and helping curate travel experiences for others. You can also find her watching Formula 1 racing, visiting art museums, spending time with her French Bulldog, and getting outside in nature. Follow Haley on Instagram @curatedhaley for her everyday happenings and @curated__experiences for travel inspiration and guidance.